Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 14:50:19 +0200 (CEST) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@secnetix.de> To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ports problems -- FIXED Message-ID: <200208231250.g7NCoJQ3073804@lurza.secnetix.de> In-Reply-To: <20020822114419.G43401@ffwd.cx>
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Skye Poier <skye@ffwd.cx> wrote:
> completely non-intuitive mistake? Its not even a mistake really,
> show me a man page or a handbook entry where it says "don't put trailing
> slashes in your path"..
There's no manpage either that tells you not to shot
yourself in the foot.
The $PATH is a sequence of dirctory names (separated by
colons). A directory name is just that -- the file name
of a directory. Such a name _never_ ends with a slash,
because the slash is used to separate components of a
path.
Of course, according to RFC1123 ("be liberal in what you
accept"), programs should be forgiving about such mistakes
and ignore the trailing slash. After all, it's clear what
the user actually meant. But on the other hand, that
behaviour encourages such mistakes. As you said, you've
had it in your .tcshrc for years without noticing.
I agree with Lowell that you should fix the statement in
your .tcshrc. Changing the bsd.mk file, libtool or tcsh
would fix it for you in this particular case, but you might
stumble across another script next week which assumes no
trailing slashes in $PATH. Therefore, fixing it once and
for all in your .tcshrc is the right thing.
Regards
Oliver
PS: Just to make sure: My e-mail message is in no way
meant to be offensive or insulting. I'm just trying to
express my own technical opinion about this matter.
PPS (for the irony-impaired): The first sentence was a
joke.
--
Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co KG, Oettingenstr. 2, 80538 München
Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author
and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way.
"All that we see or seem is just a dream within a dream" (E. A. Poe)
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